I guess for me this is all just a moot point as I like reloading. I'm in no hurry (even when I was working 10 hrs per day and 8 on Saturday, I didn't rush through anything). I don't time my reloads. I don't count "handle pulls per round". Sometimes I'd do one step on 50 rounds, sometimes two or three steps on 100. Sometimes I'd reload on my old CH single stage, sometimes on my Lee turret, and lately on my Co-Ax, and time/steps varied greatly (sometimes I'll even get out one of my Lee Loaders and pound out a few rounds, jes fer fun!). It was all fun for me and actually none of it was a drudge...
Is there a faster way with steps alternating on and off press?
- Thread starter hardheart
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.308 Norma
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Me too. When reloading became a chore because my wife and I were burning through two or three hundred rounds of ammo (44 Mag and 7mm IHMSA) every week in IHMSA matches and practice for, we quit IHMSA. That was back in the '80s, and the only shooting competitions we've been involved in since were a couple of muzzle loader shoots at mountain man rendezvous'. "Reloading" for a front stuffer is done on the spot - no coming home from work and sitting in front of a loading bench for hours while trying to figure out how to speed up the process for doing something that you use to love doing.
jmorris
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It does seem to always move to two separate groups though. One group that thinks the more time they have to spend doing something the more value they get from the end result and anything one does to reduce the manual labor involved some how takes away some of its greatness.
Yeah, they may wear clothes created in part due to Eli Whitney’s 1793 patent on the Cotten gin, drive cars largely made using products that were created with CNC equipment vs a horse and would never trust a hand made pacemaker but still “old school” on some stuff.
The other group started the same way and tried other methods along the way. Those that have either decreased effort with no change in quality or decreased effort while increasing quality are used to shift their efforts to where they could be more useful.
There are likely millions of single stage loaders out there that think their ammunition is fundamentally better than any made on a progressive, I have beat a lot of them at matches over the years.
Yeah, they may wear clothes created in part due to Eli Whitney’s 1793 patent on the Cotten gin, drive cars largely made using products that were created with CNC equipment vs a horse and would never trust a hand made pacemaker but still “old school” on some stuff.
The other group started the same way and tried other methods along the way. Those that have either decreased effort with no change in quality or decreased effort while increasing quality are used to shift their efforts to where they could be more useful.
There are likely millions of single stage loaders out there that think their ammunition is fundamentally better than any made on a progressive, I have beat a lot of them at matches over the years.
mmb617
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Since everyone else is giving their steps in processing .223 I figure I'll join in. I'm not in any particular hurry so I don't worry about what's the quickest way to get done, but I am methodical and always follow the same steps and usually work in batches of 100 at a time.
I toss them in a container labeled raw brass till I have enough cases to make it worthwhile then I tumble them in walnut media for about 2 hours.
Then I lube 'em up and size/decap in one step using my single stage press.
Next they get run through the annealing machine, something I do every time since I don't try to track how many times a particular case has been loaded or when it was last annealed.
I run them all through the swager since I pick up a lot of range brass and don't want to examine each primer pocket to see if it has a crimp. It's just easier to do them all.
Now I trim them with my WFT tool which I love. It's really quick, easy and accurate.
They get tumbled again for about 1/2 hour just to remove any lube.
On press priming done on the single stage press.
I charge them in groups of 100 using my two blocks, and examine them for powder fill level under a good light before moving to bullet seating.
Seat the bullets.
Light crimp. I prefer to do this although I know many people feel it's unnecessary.
Looking at the entire process written out it seems really long but it doesn't seem that way when doing it. So far this year I've loaded almost 5k rounds of .223 this way. I'm retired and enjoy the time spent reloading, but I can see how someone with less free time might want to automate the process.
I toss them in a container labeled raw brass till I have enough cases to make it worthwhile then I tumble them in walnut media for about 2 hours.
Then I lube 'em up and size/decap in one step using my single stage press.
Next they get run through the annealing machine, something I do every time since I don't try to track how many times a particular case has been loaded or when it was last annealed.
I run them all through the swager since I pick up a lot of range brass and don't want to examine each primer pocket to see if it has a crimp. It's just easier to do them all.
Now I trim them with my WFT tool which I love. It's really quick, easy and accurate.
They get tumbled again for about 1/2 hour just to remove any lube.
On press priming done on the single stage press.
I charge them in groups of 100 using my two blocks, and examine them for powder fill level under a good light before moving to bullet seating.
Seat the bullets.
Light crimp. I prefer to do this although I know many people feel it's unnecessary.
Looking at the entire process written out it seems really long but it doesn't seem that way when doing it. So far this year I've loaded almost 5k rounds of .223 this way. I'm retired and enjoy the time spent reloading, but I can see how someone with less free time might want to automate the process.
I also started this thread because I have settled in on a couple of loads, so development is done insofar as those particular bullets and the powder I have. I am ready to load quite a few at the same charge weight with the same bullet, so for those the exploration and experimentation part is complete. I still enjoy doing that, but now I don't need to do it for certain combinations - they just need to become finished cartridges, in bulk.
If I didn't like that shiny brass off of the wet tumbling I'd go for dry media to resize and decap in one step. I could run a progressive then. Slowing myself down for the aesthetic, but I'm coming to terms with it.
If I didn't like that shiny brass off of the wet tumbling I'd go for dry media to resize and decap in one step. I could run a progressive then. Slowing myself down for the aesthetic, but I'm coming to terms with it.
Basically I believe this is all about the reloader and much less about the steps. Some reloaders will count pennies and some will count steps and/or rounds per hour. That's OK as that is what the reloader likes, and I don't remember a "required" number of steps involved nor a "minimum" number of rounds loaded per session. I don't mind doing a lot of "extra" steps as it's all bench time and progressive presses just don't fit my lifestyle. If a reloader wants to streamline his process, cool!
A little curious here, if the brass does not need to be trimmed, why would you need to deburr at all? Unless my casings have stretched, I just resize, chunk them in the turbo. Of course with 223 I have to go back and scrape the primer pockets so my primers seat better
I've been collecting mixed rifle brass for a while but not loading much. I'm having to trim quite a significant percentage to a consistent length in this first go round. I'm not reloading the same brass over and over again yet because I'm only at several dozen used for load development. I'm just sorting headstamps of the range brass and then loading them to build up trimmed brass.
jmorris
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Reminded me of another project I played with far enough to have a proof of concept working and an great example of having equipment do work for you without compromising quality of the end product.
Anyone that has ever weight sorted brass, knows how much fun that job is. This was one of my ideas, I’d like to get back to and finish.
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